Victory gardens

Interview with June Neal about her life and civilian work for the Army during World War II. She discusses growing up on a farm in Brown County, Kansas, during the Depression, and taking a job with the Army Effects Bureau in Kansas City in 1941, processing personal items for soldiers killed in the war. She also talks about her five brothers surviving their military service, the death of her first husband and life as a widowed young mother during the 1950s and returning to work at the Internal Revenue Service in Kansas City, and about a photograph appearing on the front page of the Kansas City Star of her kissing a serviceman during VJ Day celebrations near 12th and Main. The photograph later appeared in Life magazine, resulting in calls and letters from soldiers.

Interview with Mary Alice Patterson about growing up in Kansas City, Kansas, during the Great Depression, and her marriage to her husband Dee. She discusses Dee's education as a civil engineer at the University of Kansas, his enlistment in the Navy Seabees in 1943, his service in the Pacific, and sending V-mail and care packages to him while managing life on the homefront. She also discusses memories of VJ Day while they were stationed in Providence, Rhode Island, and life after the war, with Dee returning to engineering and later work with the General Services Administration, and notes her sister Virginia's service as a nurse in the Women's Army Corps in the Pacific during the war.